THE PATH TO JUSTICE -- AND PEACE -- IN CALIFORNIA

FEAR OF violent crime is a rational reaction to what we experiencethrough
the media, but this fear is not realistic when compared to the real risks
we live with on a daily basis.

More than twice as many people are killed yearly in industrial accidents
than are murdered. Yet we don't read about them in our newspapers. More
than four times as many people are killed by misprescribed drugs than are
murdered. Yet we don't hear about them on the radio. There are tens of
thousands of people killed every year by cancer and other diseases brought
on in large measure by environmental pollutantsyet we do not see them on
our TV screens.

Instead, what we see is an endless display of violence andstreet crime. Why
is this? Could it be because direct human-on-human violence sells better
than the more complex violence that is related to working and living
conditions?

For example, how much attention is given to the violence done to
farmworkers through exposure to dangerous pesticides? How much to the
violence caused by chronic unemployment on Indian reservations throughout
California?

The fear of crime is so disproportionate to the actual risk of becoming a
victim that this fear has itself become a menace. Ignoring more significant
risks, we focus on the need to obtain revenge and retribution against
criminals who are portrayed as little more than animals. Of course, those
of wealth receive significantly softer treatment.

California has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Over
the past fifteen years, the prison population has increased almost seven
times! Prison construction has dominated state capital expenditure; for
every prison guard hired in the 1990s, the state'shigher education system
lost one staff member. A new trend toward privatization of prisons makes
prisoners into commodities producing profit for multinational corporations.

Meanwhile, prison guards have the richest war chest of any California labor
union. Recent legislative hearings in Sacramento revealed that this union
can stifle investigations even to the level of the office of Attorney
General Dan Lungren and Governor Pete Wilson.

Some 70 percent of Californians say they support the death penalty, putting
us in the company of nations like Iraq and China. Just last month, the
state executed Tommy Thompson, even after the chief witness against him
recanted his original trial testimony. More than 500 people currently live
on death row in the United States.

California is the only state with a ``3 Strikes'' law that includes
non-violent . People are receiving life sentences for offenses as minor as
petty theft, drug possession, and receiving stolen property. This law, by
counting offenses for which an individual was previously punished,
constitutes double jeopardy. The ``3Strikes'' law should be repealed and
judicial discretion restored.

We can transform our criminal justice system, making it much more
cost-effective and humane. We can step away from a system that is obsessed
with punishment and move toward a system that embraces prevention and
rehabilitation. There are countless research studies by esteemed
academicians and scientists which demonstrate the greater benefits of
putting our tax dollars to work nurturing people instead of building prisons.

This week, Pete Wilson vetoed three of the most promising efforts to make
the California Department of Corrections into a more effective instrument
of rehabilitation; despite the fact that two-thirds of parolees are
returning to prison because of untreated substance abuse problems, the
governor vetoed 3,000 treatment beds from the budget,vetoed a $2.8 million
expansion of the tested and effective Preventing Parolee Failure program,
vetoed a $2 million effort to find alternative treatment for the
non-violent mentally ill whose only treatment is jail,and vetoed a $1.5
million intensive parole supervision pilot program.

All of these programs need to be reinstated now as a first step toward a
rational criminal justice system.

There is an old saying -- if you want peace, work for justice. The Green
Party envisions a society with much less violence. We believe this will be
achieved to the extent that we create a more just society. Our criminal
justice system is an important place for this transformation to occur. Let
it begin with a restoration of Governor Wilson's vetoes.

Dan Hamburg, a former congressman from the North Coast, is the Green
Party's candidate for governor.

1997 - 1998 Mercury Center.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan